My House of Horrors

The Liang siblings entered the corridor directly, and the others followed closely behind them. Ma Feng, though, stopped outside the building for a while. He was studying the missing person notice.“The name Jiang Ming is very familiar. I believe Jiang Jiu’s son is called Jiang Ming. Is this one of the pranks pulled by the boss?”

The missing person’s article provided a picture of the child, but Ma Feng had no recollection of this child at all. Once all the people had ventured into the building, the child on the missing person notice suddenly winked. He appeared to be making signal at another ‘person’ who was far away. A small shadow appeared from the corner of the wall. A light scent lingered in the air. He followed the group into the apartment and kindly helped close the front door behind them.

“This place is too quiet, isn’t it‽” At a location that was absolutely silent, people would sometimes be frightened by their own voice. Liang Er and Liang San were incredibly interested in how the haunted house boss had managed to do something like this. They were all professionals. They inspected the scenario inch by inch and noticed with surprise that not only were the corridors not fitted with speakers and microphones, they did not even have any surveillance cameras. Other than a few old-looking light bulbs that appeared like they could go out at any moment, there was no trace of any high-tech equipment in this sub-scenario at all.

“Didn’t the people on the internet say that the special effect at this haunted house are Hollywood level? Are you telling me that these few lightbulbs are everything they are talking about? This has to be a joke.” This time, not only Fu Bole, even Ma Feng also thought that Chen Ge’s haunted house was more hyped up than it actually was.

“You cannot find any high-tech equipment, but the place can pull off a Hollywood standard horror effects. That in itself is a very scary thing.” Zuo Han was telling the truth, but in the other people’s ears, he was merely making excuses for Chen Ge’s haunted house.

However, there was a small number among the haunted house designers who took his words seriously. Liang Er and Liang San stood inside the corridor and looked around with confusion. “The walls, and the banisters are everyday objects. The walls are not painted with acoustic insulating material, and there is no trace of any high-tech equipment. How did he manage to create this kind of strange and eerie atmosphere? There is not even an echo to our voices. It feels like once the sound leaves our lips, it is immediately swallowed up by something.”

“Stop trying to scare yourself. The concept behind this is probably something like magic. It might look magical, but you will realize it is just a normal trick once you find out the truth.” Fu Bole clapped his hands. “Okay, we will follow Brother Ma’s earlier suggestion. We will split into three groups and start to search for the broken parts of the rag doll. One group will be responsible for the search of an individual floor. We will do the same thing in the other buildings that we encounter in the future.”

After he said that, he wandered purposely to Ma Feng’s side. The meaning was clear; he wanted to be in the same group as Ma Feng.

“You have not even found the insider, and you are already that desperate to split into groups. Death is going to come for you, and you will not even know what happened.” Zuo Han shook his head at Mr. Wang. “The three of us will continue to stick together. Let’s just ignore the rest of them.”

Since the people from Jiujiang Medical University had refused to join the rest, the remaining twelve were split into three groups.

Ma Feng, Shang Guan Qing Hong, Fu Bole, and Wei Chaochao were one group; Xiao Sun, Liang Er, Liang San, and the middle-aged woman from the Castle of Lost Memories were the second group; and the third group consisted of Qin Guang, Sister Snake, and the couple from Xin Hai. The twelve of them would still be inside the same building, but they would split up to search the different floors. This meant that the distance between the three groups would not be so far. They could get another group’s help if they needed it.

Fu Bole, who thought that Chen Ge’s haunted house was just a product of pure sensationalism, led Ma Feng and the rest to the second floor. Sister Snake’s group ventured further down to the underground third floor. Liang Er and Liang San continued to search the first floor. The Liang siblings were hulking leviathans. They were muscular and strong. It felt safe being assigned the same group as them.

Liang Er gave Zuo Han a side eye and warned, “You will go to the rooms on the left, and we will check the rooms on the right. That way, we will not interrupt each other. Do not cross that line and come to disrupt our work.”

“That was my intention too.” Zuo Han led He San and Mr. Wang down the long corridor. They started to search for clues closely from inside and out.

“Big brother, do you really think they are the haunted house’s actors? I personally do not think so. The presence that they give off is very unique and unlike normal haunted house workers,” Liang San whispered.

“We are here to clear this haunted house. Who cares what their real identities are? We only need to complete the assignment given to us by Director Ma.” Liang Er stopped at the door of the first room at the corner of the stairs.

There was a wooden sign hanging next to the door. The sign read, ‘If you need anything, please pull on the string connected to the light repeatedly.’

“It warns us against knocking on the door but wants us to pull on this string. Is it because they are afraid that the sound of knocking might attract the ghosts?” Liang Er grabbed the string. “The actor called Wu Jinpeng appeared to have said earlier that if you make any sound, you will attract the attention of ghosts. But along the way, we have been chatting quite loudly, and we have not seen any ghosts, have we?”

“This place is so quiet. Is it possible that the ghosts have already shown up? It is just that because they do not make any sound, temporarily, we haven’t been able to find them.” Liang San’s brain was very active as well.

“Oh well, it does not matter. We will take a look inside this room first. All of the haunted house’s first sub scenarios should be the simplest. Nothing too scary will appear here, or else it will not give an accumulative sense of fear to the visitors in the latter parts of the scenario,” Liang Er said as he pulled on the string. Once he yanked on the string, the lights inside the room switched on. He repeated it several times, and the lights flickered on and off, but nothing happened.

“Were we tricked?” Liang Er frowned heavily. He grabbed the doorknob and pushed heavily. The old door was pushed open easily, but before he could observe the environment inside the room closely, a change suddenly happened inside the corridor. A strange stench drifted around them. It smelled like the decay of dead bodies mixed together with the copper smell of fresh blood. They had a feeling that something or someone was slowly approaching them.

“Be careful. The ghost probably is coming. You’d better not wander off on your own. Just stay close to me.” Liang Er was a kind and responsible person. Those words were meant for Xiao Sun.

“The first actor at this haunted house has disappointed me greatly. I wonder if what happens next will change my mind.” Liang San entered the room. The first thing that he saw were the broken beer bottles that littered the floor. But all the sharp edges of the glass had been grounded smooth, probably out of concern for the visitors’ safety. Among the broken pieces lay a woman. She was covered in wounds. Other than her face and both her arms, her body was covered with cloth patches. The patches appeared to grow directly out of her skin, and it looked quite scary.

“Is that an actor or a prop?” Liang San reached out to grab the woman’s arm. The sensation that came from his fingertips was very different from that of human skin. He was about to sigh in relief when he suddenly saw the mirror that was hanging in the bathroom. The mirror was facing the door, and inside the mirror, there was a pair of strange eyes staring at him.

“Someone’s there!” Liang San dropped the woman’s arm and whipped his head around to look. Being warned by Liang San, the others also turned back to look. Everyone saw a man’s face that had poked out from the door frame of the door that they just came through!

His features were twisted, and his mud-like body was plastered onto the door frame. His black eyes were filled with curses and venom. Xiao Sun was standing at the back of the group, so he was the one that was currently closest to the entrance. He was originally trying to think about the scare points that were hidden in this scenario when he suddenly heard Liang San’s warning. He turned subconsciously around and almost bumped right into that scary face. His face paled even further. Xiao Sun staggered back several steps and almost knocked into Liang Er’s stomach.

“When did this thing show up‽” Xiao Sun’s voice was shuddering. He was given quite a fright.

“I have no idea. I did not hear any movement at all. It’s as if it appeared from thin air.” Liang San scratched his double chin. “So, there is something about this haunted house after all!”

“Should we inform the others about this development?”

“We should wait until we have more concrete evidence first.”

Liang Er and Liang San started to move to study the monster outside the room. They discovered the man that was shaped like a pile of mud was just a mannequin. There was no high-tech equipment installed in the mannequin either.

“Someone probably moved this thing here. I suspect that the culprits are the people from the so-called Jiujiang Medical University. They are on the same floor as us, and they are very close to us.” Liang San looked down the corridor. Currently, Zuo Han’s group was inside the room at the other end of the corridor. For all intent and purposes, it did not appear that they had left that room.

“They are highly suspicious, but if it was not them, this is worth considering. We are operators of a haunted house as well. These are things and techniques that we can pick up and learn.” The Liang Brothers had a more neutral attitude. They did not view Chen Ge’s haunted house with absolute hostility.

Just as the two were speaking, the middle-aged woman suddenly opened her lips. “Did you guys notice something?”

“What is it?” Liang Er and Liang San turned to look inside the room. They saw the middle-aged woman was pointing at the woman lying on the ground.

“Her hand was not held in that gesture earlier.”

“What are you trying to say? The mannequin knows how to move on her own?”

“No, the logical explanation is that there should be a hidden room inside this room. When our attention was distracted by the monster outside the door, the workers came out from the hidden room and changed the woman’s posture.” The middle-aged woman spoke very slowly. “They probably wanted to create the impression that the danger is slowly approaching. The ghosts and monsters will move without a sound, and they might appear beside us at any scenario and at every spot. That should be the biggest selling point of this scenario.”

“You have a point.”

“That honestly is not a bad idea, but unfortunately, he has run into us. We are all top haunted house designers. With just a lift of his finger, we can already predict what he is about to do next.” Liang San’s gaze moved back into the room. “Why don’t we continue the search inside the room? Perhaps we can find some kind of hidden pathway.”

Liang San wanted to find out how Chen Ge managed to move the mannequin so silently and without notice. He wanted to steal the knowledge of these things and then apply it to his own haunted house.

“What was your name again? Don’t just stand there and do nothing. Come and help us look. I know we are visiting a haunted house, but we do not need to follow the rules laid down by the boss.” Liang San noticed Xiao Sun, who was still standing there. He thought that Xiao Sun was scared into inactivity.

“I think it’s best we follow the boss’ rules. What if some kind of accident happens?” Sun Xiaojun’s real thoughts were—If you guys continue to stray from the script, there will be no chance for me to shine.

“Didn’t Boss Chen claim that we are free to explore the scenario, that the visitors are free to do anything they wish? Today, I will teach him that bluffing has consequences. It is one thing to do that before normal visitors, but before us professional designers, a haunted house is nothing more than a delicately designed toy.” The two brothers started to search inside the room. Xiao Sun also symbolically started his search. He had not followed Chen Ge for that long. He did not recognize most of the original workers, and he was not familiar with the secrets of most of the scenarios.

Every time he wanted to ask Chen Ge what he should do, Chen Ge would just tell him to be himself. Then, when he went to ask for pointers from Ol’ Zhou, Ol’ Zhou would wax some kind of nonsense about his natural talent and that there was nothing that he could be taught. Apparently, he was perfect the way he was. Both his boss and his teacher were of no help to him. Xiao Sun felt quite helpless. He sighed lightly to himself and moved around the room, pretending to find something to do.

When other people were making their search perimeter around the woman mannequin, he was aimlessly looking through the other items in the room. He even grumbled under his breath. “When the man came through the door, even I was frightened by it. This haunted house is really scary.”

With that thought in mind, he turned back to look at the entrance. Xiao Sun realized with some confusion that the man’s gaze appeared to be fixed at a certain spot.

“Is he looking at the mirror inside the bathroom?” Xiao Sun entered the bathroom and stood before the mirror. “A scary face like that is leaning against the door. It feels even scarier looking at from the refection in the mirror.”

He held the bottom of the mirror with his palms. Xiao Sun gradually applied force. When the mirror started to nudge, a droplet of blood slid down the surface of the mirror, and then a snail shell dropped out from behind the mirror.

“A snail? The man is afraid of snails? Never mind, I am not good at this kind of guessing game. This shell is covered in a spider web. It is probably a prop left behind from a long time ago.” Xiao Sun tossed the snail shell to the side, but right then, another snail shell dropped out from behind the mirror.

“What is going on?” Xiao Sun grabbed the side of the mirror out of curiosity. He wanted to remove the mirror to take a look. As the mirror moved further from its original spot, more and more snail shells poured out from behind it.

“What are you doing?”

“Why are there so many snail shells?”

The other people heard the strange noises, so they too hurried into the bathroom. Before Xiao Sun could answer their question, they saw the wall next to the mirror suddenly give way to reveal a door that was painted with a bright red snail.

“The hidden pathway‽” Xiao Sun and the Liang brothers said in unison. They had not spent that much time in the haunted house, and they had already found the hidden pathway inside the first room of the first sub scenario!

Liang Er and Liang San were overjoyed. They had finally found the hidden pathway inside the haunted house. Whether this would help clear the scenario or not, it would be intensely helpful to get to the bottom of Chen Ge’s secrets. Xiao Sun was stunned out of his mind. He had heard from Chen Ge that there were nine hidden pathways in the nine sub scenarios. All nine pathways could lead directly to the hidden scenario. The rag doll’s broken body parts were hidden inside the hidden scenarios, but at the whole haunted house, only Chen Ge knew where the hidden pathways were located. Not even Xiao Sun knew about their exact locations.

This is bad. I seem to have done something irrevocably horrible.

Xiao Sun was still holding the mirror. His mind was spinning rapidly. He was supposed to be there to add trouble to the visitors, but the first thing he did helped the visitors find the hidden pathway and saved them plenty of time.

“You are good, Xiao Sun. I am surprised you are that detail-orientated of a person. None of us professionals even noticed this hidden mechanism.” Liang San patted Xiao Sun’s shoulder in praise, and then he moved to push open the door with the snail painted on it. The surrounding temperature dropped again. Behind the door was a staircase that led deep underground. Standing at the top of the stairs, one was unable to see the end.

Being praised by the visitors, Xiao Sun also did not know what to say. Before he could figure out what to do next, he saw Liang Er and Liang San switch on their flashlights and enter the hidden path.

“Hey! Be careful! We were warned against moving on our own!” Xiao Sun wanted to hold them back, but the few overly confident haunted house designers did not give him the time of day. Including the middle-aged woman, all three of them filed into the stairs.

Cold, dark, quiet. The scary feeling could no longer be described in simple words. This was far beyond the realm of a simple game. The path was surprisingly long, but they still managed to reach the end of it eventually. A pure black iron door appeared before them. The door was reeking of disinfectant. If one looked closely, one could see black threads wiggling on it. Everything inside the hidden path was scary, but the words beside the iron door that said ‘please close the door after you enter’ ruined the scary atmosphere quite a bit.

“What do you reckon’s behind the door? The body parts of the rag doll? This haunted house’s surveillance room?”

“I guess it is the dressing room, and we will run into a bunch of actors putting on their make-up.”

“Well, we will find out by opening the door, won’t we?”

Liang San pushed open the heavy and unwieldy black iron door. Instantly, an endless sea of black fog rolled out and directly swallowed these few lucky visitors. When the black iron door closed again, there was only Sun Xiaojun left alone inside the hidden corridor. His Adam’s apple wiggled. Sun Xiaojun had taken a glimpse of the world behind the door. He dropped down to the stairs.

“This is bad. These three have not even experienced a one-star scenario before. They have entered the ghost fetus’ world of black fog without any preparation!”

This was similar to a patient, thinking that he had a sore throat, going to the hospital for a consultation but being wheeled directly into the crematorium.

“The red high heels is recovering the ghost fetus’ memory inside the world in the process of becoming a Demon God. She definitely will not expect the visitors to find her within five minutes of the game starting!” Just the thought of the accidents that might happen inside there made Xiao Sun’s scalp go numb. “I really did not mean to do this! This can’t do! I need to contact Boss Chen immediately! This is an issue of life and death!”